LC380 Design Flaw

This is a discussion on LC380 Design Flaw within the Ruger Pistols forums, part of the Pistol & Revolver Forum category; I got an LC380 a couple of weeks ago shot a box of Am. Eagle through it .No problems at all. Maybe some have magazine ...

Well I hate to say it but the problem didn't go away. I ran about 80 rounds of American Eagle and 40 of WWB. The first 40 or so of AE were flawless and then the next 40 I had about 5 feed failures similar to the original ones. I switched to Winchester White Box and had a failure at round 40. At that point I gave up. Contacting Ruger again, Here are two pics of the unusual ones.

Boy Greylar rhat is really bad & I was looking forward to the LC 380. I have an LC9 & like it & it has been no trouble but I need a 380 for an easier gun to handle. I have an LC380 on order with a lasermax as I liked the LC9 so much with the laser. I think surely it must be in the screwed up mag as the rest of the gun is pretty well proven.

I received it back from Ruger last week. I dropped it at UPS on a Friday and had it back in my hands 10 days later. (very nice). However the repair order said the exact same thing as the last time. (repaired magazine and test fired). Last time when I called they were cryptic about what that meant, so I didn't bother this time. Let me say this, I am very surprised that they didn't replace the magazine. My immediate question was what about the magazine did they "repair" that they didn't repair the first time. I couldn't see any difference so I assume they threw in a new spring and called it a day. It is very disappointing and I don't believe that I can ever trust this gun for every day carry. But for those that have them or are going to purchase one in the future here is my final analysis.

I think there are three things in play here:
1. There is indeed a design defect with the magazine. Look at the original pics and you will see that slightly longer magazine feed lips would completely eliminate the issue.
2. American Eagle ammo has a large and inconsistent bevel around the rim. Using PMC ammo I did not have any failures. However I did have some failures (not as many) with WWB (similar beveled rim).
3. There must be a slight difference in my magazine (or maybe a tight extractor) from others since some people are reporting no problems with theirs using Federal ammo. I can't prove this since Ruger didn't send me a new magazine and at this point I don't want to sink another $40 into the thing to find out.

Here is the deal, IMHO you need all three things to make the LC380 fail, so everyone that has or is going to buy one should be fine if they test fire it. But I can't shake the feeling that every one of these are a magazine in the dirt away from failure. Once I decided that was the case I couldn't bring myself to carry it even if it functioned properly on the next trip to the range.

So today I opted to take Ruger's word for it that the gun was functioning properly and dropped it at the LGS without even a test fire. I'm disappointed because with the LC380 I could put rounds on target faster than any large caliber handgun I own and really wanted to trust it.

I'm sure that this sort of thing is hard for Ruger as well, since they were unable to replicate the problem (they declined my offer to send them some ammo). And being in their shoes I probably would have just said use different ammo. But I guess I had hoped that I could provide them enough info to fix the underlying issue instead of putting a patch on it.

Boy Greylar thar does sound bad. I am surprised at Ruger. I still am waiting for one as I need it for the lighter rack & recoil. I just got a SR9c that I haven't had a chance to shoot yet. The slide rack is fine with the SR9c but I got rid of a Shield because of the HARD slide rack. They are terrible in that respect. I could load it but don't have a jamb.

Perhaps the problem is the magazine lips or tangs are just slightly too loose for those rounds and allowing the round to angle up too far. My dad's Taurus 380 had the opposite issue where the nose of the round was jammed into the feed ramp and some slight opening of the tangs allowed the nose of the round to ride slightly higher as the round was being pushed out of the magazine. That helped. Still need to polish his feed ramp and chek. Some other suggestions on the Taurus forums as it is still sometimes failing to extract maybe one out of 20 times.

Not sure what to make of this. I'm having a hard time buying that the problem is a "design flaw" inherent in the LC380. I do beleive there is an issue with the OP pistol and/or magazine.

Both myslef and a buddy have the LC380 and we've put darn near 600 rounds through each without a failure. American Eagle, Winchester White Box, PMC, Wolf and Blazer Brass. It's just ate what we through at them. Based on this I can't quite see the "design flaw." If it was, it should be more reproducable. I'm guessing it is something specific to the mag or pistol in this thread.

No one has any reason to believe me but I can assure you I was not limp wristing. I have an LCP and plenty of other compacts style guns that do not do this. PMC ammo didn't do it and WWB did it less. In fact as I mentioned before, I could hold it tight enough that there was almost no muzzle flip at all. 3 rounds a second into the target. If i was limp wristing the muzzle would not come back to target that fast. No offense taken, I often wonder the same thing about other posts.

But I'm not sure why people have such a hard time believing that keeping the same distance from the magazine to the chamber but using a shorter round might cause a situation where the gun isn't as forgiving of ammo, out of spec magazines etc.

Finally if limp wristing is the root problem, then I don't want it either. I don't want a CCW that I have to be in a combat stance with wrists locked to get to function properly. God forbid you are laying on the ground trying to get shot off. Well I guess that probably never happens so I shouldn't worry about it.

With that being said, if it works for you do it up. I really like the gun and don't want to discourage anyone, just venting my frustration.
G

I certainly meant no offense and did not mean to communicate I do not believe the issues you are encountering. I only question whether or not your guess about the feed lip being too short is a reality or a design flaw. It just doesn't seem reproducible enough in my humble opinion. Preliminary reports seem to be similar to the average amount of FTF we see on most other semi pistols. But perhaps this is something Ruger can tweak in the future if ammo, pistol, and mag tolerances lend themselves to this possible issue.

The only ammo I have found that I had problems with was Herters, but after I polished the feed ramp, no more problems. I just got a new Mag in the mail, so whenever the sun comes out again, I am going to the range to see what I can do with the new mag.

No one has any reason to believe me but I can assure you I was not limp wristing. I have an LCP and plenty of other compacts style guns that do not do this. PMC ammo didn't do it and WWB did it less. In fact as I mentioned before, I could hold it tight enough that there was almost no muzzle flip at all. 3 rounds a second into the target. If i was limp wristing the muzzle would not come back to target that fast. No offense taken, I often wonder the same thing about other posts.

But I'm not sure why people have such a hard time believing that keeping the same distance from the magazine to the chamber but using a shorter round might cause a situation where the gun isn't as forgiving of ammo, out of spec magazines etc.

Finally if limp wristing is the root problem, then I don't want it either. I don't want a CCW that I have to be in a combat stance with wrists locked to get to function properly. God forbid you are laying on the ground trying to get shot off. Well I guess that probably never happens so I shouldn't worry about it.

With that being said, if it works for you do it up. I really like the gun and don't want to discourage anyone, just venting my frustration.
G

I have a solution to your problem. Buy a Sig P238 & you will be amazed at what a good shot you are!

Similar problems. I bought my LC380 in Feb, along with a box of Remington UMC for practice (and that box performed great), and some Remington self defense hp (only fired a few so far, no problems). Since then, have used various ammo because it's really hard to find in my area now. Almost every time to the range after the original, I will have 2 or 3 feed problems with an unfired round getting caught trying to get out of the eject, as if the mag spring was so tight it was throwing a round to far up now and then. I think I'm having trouble with Hornady ammo, but have not confirmed that yet. The Hornady seems to be a little bigger or something, and harder to load that 7th round in the mag. Obviously, I want to find the ammo that this gun loves, cause I love the feel of it. I'm sure a lot has to do with the spacer they put in the LC9 mags so it could use 380, and perhaps the ramp being a little off. Haven't sent back to Ruger yet, but thinking about it. Don't want to CC some night, and have that happen at a bad time. I did finally get the extra mag that I ordered online about 3 weeks ago, glad to have that.